Parahumanity

(A novel)

Now published by Wild Wolf Publishing!

***

It’s evening when I arrive at the cabins, but the sunlight still lingers. I can trace the desert all the way to the horizon.

Having only experienced the westerly side of the mountain before, I’m not sure what I expected to find on the other side. Certainly not this: miles and miles of untouched, unsullied sand, stretching out like a blank canvas from here to a distant line where the sky meets the land. The only signs of human life: two wooden cabins (evidently built by quite a craftsman, I might add – I could not have done much better myself), about a mile or so from the mountain’s base. One is the size of a very small cottage. The other, smaller still, faces it, and was perhaps once a workroom or storage for whoever inhabited the larger building. Or even a guesthouse. Yes: the way it is set up – makeshift kitchenette in the corner by the door, desk gently sagging beneath the tiny single window, sun-stained refrigerator peeking from under a bookshelf – someone could easily live here.

Both buildings are equally dead. No lights on in the windows, no sounds coming from within. After lengthy consideration, I take the smaller building.

The door whines gratefully open when I nudge it. As I step over the threshold, clouds of captive dust mob me. Cling to my eyes. Flood my throat. I choke and claw it away. As my eyes clear, I take in the space: somehow bigger and brighter than it had appeared through the grimy window, the furniture touched with gold from the setting sun. Eight staggering strides take me from the door to the desk – that makes it eighteen feet across, I think, assuming my stride has remained the same length. Good. I don’t think I could stand another cage.

I unpack alone. It crosses my mind as I do this that, even though I have been lonely before, this is the first time in my life that I will ever be properly alone. What happens to Katrina when she is alone? It is bound to affect my mind somehow. Perhaps a stronger, smarter new me will rise, unrestrained, out of the chaos and confusion. That’s something to look forward to.

I loosen the straps and detached the Portable CryoBag from my back. My shoulders ache from the weight, but I manage to lower the bulky synthetic cube softly to the floor, then push it gently into the shadiest corner. Its whirring seems louder now, in the silence of the cabin: an infant’s cry.

I put the rusty little chain across the splintering front door. Draw the curtains across the small single window. I line up my test tubes – twenty-six of them, all fresh out of the packet – along the dusty wooden desk. This will be my work station.

I find items in my lab-coat pockets which I can’t remember taking. I remove them one-by-one and line them up on the desk. Three pens, ten half-melted Hershey’s Kisses which I must have nabbed from the laboratory kitchen, and an old-style cassette tape. I peer at the name scribbled in ballpoint on the label.

It is Alexander Bai’s.

I throw it across the room where it shatters against the wall, the film lolling from the plastic like a dead animal’s tongue. I hiss at the pieces.

Food far from my mind, I investigate the kitchenette with logical detachment. It consists of an old solar-powered Eco-Kettle, a jar of instant coffee, and a little fridge-freezer: broken. But I think I can fix it-

Of course I can fix it! There are five days of power left in the CryoBag. This will be plenty until I can get the proper freezer working again. It will.

I close my eyes and think the words, just in case Alexander Bai can hear me telepathically. I have to let him know that wherever he is, no matter how hard he tries to stop me, I have things under cont-

The dead cassette. Its film sticking out. Mocking me.

I shrug off my lab-coat, throw it over the cassette, and let the dying sunlight warm my naked body for a moment. Then I make myself a cup of instant coffee (the Eco-Kettle has a little stale water and some power left in it) and take it over to the corner of the room where I sit against the wall with my legs bunched up to my chest. Focus on strong thoughts.

Any emotions I am feeling now – they’re wrong. All my misery has been left on the other side of the mountain. A new, stronger animal is leaning against the wall of this cabin, head against the boards and eyes on the ceiling, waiting in the dark for the sun to rise.

Purchase the novel here.